BAPTIST CHURCH.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XLIII, Issue 15000, 21 November 1899, Page 1

BAPTIST CHURCH.

On Sunday the 17th anniversary of the local Baptist Church, was celebrated by special services conducted by some of the visiting delegates to the Conference, held last. week. Favoured by fine weather, there were large attendances. In the morning the preacher was the Rev. Alfred North, the pastor of Hanover Street Church, Dunedin, who chose for his text the 23rd and 24th verses of the foxirth chapter of John. The preacher spoke first of the nature of God, and then of the nature of the .w.ojahinwhe desires. The nature is different' ffdm the character; and God is -a r spirit;'' or,- as it" may be rendered, God is Spirit. • It is fitting . that we should pay Him profoundest reverence, but reverence is not antagonistic to thought. It is well to state, at the outset; that, there is' no such thing us spirit in the bulk. It does not exist as- matter and space do. It is personality, and cannot be conceived by ■us apart therefrom. We ourselves are person and- matter, and because we are se^fconscious, we know what spirit is— -jhat it is; the most real and substantial of all things. We do not say that God is like to' man, but that man is like to God, To comprehend the inimite- is indeed impossible, but to" apprehend the infinite is pos-. nible, and we know God truly when we receive the revelation, in the incarnate Son of God. ■ Only God. can know ■ God, as indeed He is, for we are finite spirits, and He is the infinite one without limitations of any sort, .filling id and transcending all. Omnipresence ta-«nimscience are' His. He is everywhere in all, and through all and beyond and above all, . and:<_He is everywhere present in the fulness of- His perfect being. God is spirit, the perfect personality, perfectly present everywhere, not fractionally, but in the completeness of His being. The nature of God determines the character of the worship He desires. The word, which is in the Bible, rendered "worship," means primarily, "to bow down." Our word worship has another meaning, if is literally "worthship"— that which is haped according to, the worth— homage refldes-ed; fa worth. God is spirit, and His worship must be spiritual, as opposed to what is formal and external, and as involving the exercise of our spiritual powers. His real desire is for tho. spirits H« has made. We cannot worship God and withhold ourselves from Him. Because God is spirit ali places, are alike fitted with His presence, and he is equally '.J^cjsessible, everywhere and to all. It ib o'lir^ privilege to gtand immediately in" His -wesence. Direct fellowship' with the Father "is possible to us wherever we may be. This teaching of the spirituality oj worship delivers us from .bondage to place, and also from bondagg-- to form. No form is prescribed, no particular forms are necessaTy, they should always be of the sort most consonant with, and conducive to spirituality. The spiritual worship person is in actual personal oontact with God, and no one may dare to intervene between the, Father and His child. We must allow nothing. but conscience to determine for us the p'.ace of worship we shall attend. We must have respsct to truth in. all things, and in worship we must, above all, be true and keep God first, ::